Chemical Weapons Massacre Memorial 2015

Live-tweeting the names of those gassed to death on Aug 21, 2013 in Syria

Project Description

Friday August 21st, 2015 marked the 2nd anniversary of the chemical weapons attack launched in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21, 2013, killing over 1400 people.

Our twitter account,@HowManySyrians, tweeted the names of those hundreds of innocent children and civilians who were killed by the sarin gas. But in addition to simply asking “How Many More?” we wanted to answer a very important issue that cannot be ignored by people who care about human lives: Who did it?

Some people have committed the ultimate injustice to these victims by denying their families’ right to lay blame for this atrocity. The evidence is clear. Not even one of the victims families’ has expressed any doubt that the Syrian government was responsible. The Syrian regime had one of the world’s largest stockpiles of sarin gas. The areas attacked were regularly bombed only by the regime. The sarin gas was deployed using missiles that only the Syrian regime had, from areas only the Syrian regime controlled.

The OPCW was tasked by the UN with investigating whether chemical weapons had been used. They found “clear and convincing evidence” that sarin had been used. The OPCW’s mandate did not include investigating who was responsible. But the evidence was clear, even in the OPCW’s report. Assad did it.

From the trajectories of projectiles, to the types of munition used, and history of Assad regime’s bombing of these areas, this evidence is irrefutable. And the Syrian government, which had denied for years that it had any chemical weapons, suddenly declared and surrendered these weapons.

So as Syrians, we ask the world to not only remember these victims, but to keep in mind at all times that the Syrian government did it.

The guilty party, the Assad regime, crossed the infamous “red line” and continues to cross it regularly, even after UN resolution 2118. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights – الشبكة السورية لحقوق الإنسان the Syrian government has used chemical weapons 125 times since the UN resolution 2118, following August 2013’s attack.

We tweeted the names. Please go read them. After each name, join us in asking, how many more must die until the world does something?‪ #‎HowManyMore‬? How many more will be killed before “Never Again” really means Never Again? We have had enough politics and rhetoric, we want to live.

The co-founder & interim CEO of Twitter, @jack, with 3 million followers, just followed @HowManySyrians on Twitter and tweeted about our effort to remember all the victims of Assad’s and ISIS’s war against the Syrian people.

“The tweeting of names was a new way to remember those who died “, Fusion News interview with How Many More co-founder Lina Sergie.